Been using Thumbs Plus Pro since before Windows offered an icon view so it predates many of the other options out there. We use it to download, sort, show, slide show and launch PS. On-site we only run two programs Thumbs and PS. It's a pretty strong databasing program, but I don't use that feature.

Steve

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Have you ever stopped to think and forgot to start again?

and more of a fast, fast, fast image browser that lets me see the tons of photos I have in a hurry and provides a quick, efficient way (keyboard shortcut) for me to open one of them up into PhotoShop if I want to edit them.

I use Picasa as my default image browser it is fast , light and powerful …. I don’t recall any crashing or hanging

I use Lightroom now as I have done for years. But it's becoming the same as most Adobe products, it's trying to be too many things to too many people, and it doesn't do it very well. Sad that V4 is due out without some of teh V 3 bugs ever being addressed. They're hell bent on revenue instead of building a quality product.

There is no one program that is better than any of the others. There's only the one you like, that suits the way you work, and if it's free all the better.

FastStone is my favorite image viewing software. It's fast, supports about any image format (including RAW), and is free for private use (faststone.org). I used ACDsee for may years, but I think FastStone is superior.

I'm still using Lightroom, and still like its flow better than anything. I know you never came around to using, liking, or understanding, and that is fine. not here to convert you. Just glad that you have found something that might be better for you, and hope to see some of the results appear on this forum....